Charlie Wilson 'loved East Texas first'

Former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson of East Texas hugs his heart-shaped pillow at a Houston hospital, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007 just before his releas 10 days after receiving a heart transplant . (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan) less

Former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson of East Texas hugs his heart-shaped pillow at a Houston hospital, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007 just before his releas 10 days after receiving a heart transplant . (AP Photo/Pat ... more

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Former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson of East Texas hugs his heart-shaped pillow at a Houston hospital, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007 just before his releas 10 days after receiving a heart transplant . (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan) less

Former U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson of East Texas hugs his heart-shaped pillow at a Houston hospital, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007 just before his releas 10 days after receiving a heart transplant . (AP Photo/Pat ... more

And with the assurance they had his back despite his roguish ways, he strode long-legged to the other side of the world to slay the Soviet Union while nobody was looking.

Wilson, 76, died Wednesday in Lufkin, the donated heart in his chest giving out, failing to support any longer the lean figure with the tousled hair, the irrepressible grin, the bad-boy trail he left, and the unmistakable impact on world history he wielded from a seat on a House appropriations subcommittee.

Wilson helped to turn the mire in which the Soviet Union found itself in Afghanistan in 1980 into its graveyard. And he looked homeward to help the Big Thicket National Preserve acquire land to protect what scientists behold as a biological crossroad.
He also spoke out for jobs in the dwindling industries of East Texas, watching with anger as giant piles of woodchips cut from his district’s forests were shipped out to Japan to make finished products.

While making such a point in March 1993 at a private terminal at the Port of Beaumont, some workers there barricaded him inside without warning, basically holding him captive for 10 minutes. They made their point before letting him go.

Wilson was unbowed and grinned, but he meant what he said about jobs. His rich boom of a voice could rise in pitch when he was passionate about an issue.

It was a voice he had found at the age of 13.

His dog, Teddy

A town councilman in Trinity had purposely mixed shattered glass into dog food and fed it to Wilson’s dog, Teddy, because he had gotten into the councilman’s yard.

Teddy ate it and paid with his life, agonizingly.

Wilson calculated his revenge. He had a driver’s permit because he was from a farm family and on election day, he hauled voters into town on his dad’s truck for them to cast ballots.

Wilson recalled saying to the mostly African-American voters that he wasn’t recommending they vote for anyone in particular, but pointed out that councilman Charles Hazard had killed his dog.

Wilson brought 96 voters to the polls. Hazard lost by 16 votes. A political career was born.

But his own election would have to wait for him to complete Naval service. Wilson was serving as an officer after graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1956 when he filed in 1960 to run for a state legislative seat from Lufkin as a Democrat.

He advocated for regulation of utilities and for Medicaid, a state version of medical insurance for poor people, like Medicare for the elderly. He said he used to drive around East Texas and saw old people on their porches waiting to die and he wanted to do something about it.

In 1972, he won election to the U.S. House, representing the old 2nd District that took in much of East Texas and included Jasper, Newton, Hardin and Orange counties.

In East Texas, Wilson tirelessly advocated for constituents, building a reputation for service, and for veterans in particular. The Charles Wilson Veterans Administration Outpatient Clinic in Lufkin is named for him.

Wilson and his staff would cruise around the sprawling 2nd District in a lumbering, green motor home — a vehicle spoofed as a party bus by an unsuccessful Republican challenger in Wilson’s 1990 and 1992 re-election bids.

Wilson said he used the motor home as a traveling district office rather than renting space in multiple towns.

But as the motor home bounced along East Texas farm roads, Wilson bounced 81 checks totaling $144,000 at the infamous House Bank, which imploded in 1992.

Wilson just grinned, shrugged it off and said voters wouldn’t remember it.

He had a capacity for pettiness as well, punishing the Defense Department with the budget cudgel he wielded when they wouldn’t let his then-girlfriend, a Miss World, hitch a ride with him on an Air Force transport.

The “last angel”

Wilson cultivated a taste for whiskey and a hankering for women, though he never trained his roving eye on his staff that was liberally composed of young, pretty women.

“I was the last angel, the baby of the staff,” said Lori Mixson of Buna. “I worked for Charlie for all of 1995 and 1996. It was the best thing that could have happened to me career-wise.”

Mixson, now a wife and mother of two, works as a political and labor liaison for a group of doctors based in Austin.

Mixson said she had lunch with Wilson a few months ago, going up to Lufkin with Beaumont lawyer Walter Umphrey.

“We lost a great friend and a great representative,” Umphrey said. “He served the people of East Texas, the state, and the United States. He had foresight and a knack for seeing through problems. If anyone earned his keep representing his district, he did.”

Umphrey said politicians these days are at each others throats. Wilson, like other towering figures in Texas politics like Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn, had the ability to work with members of the other party.

Jack Brooks, former congressman from Beaumont, said “they’re coming apart up there,” referring to the warfare between Democrats and Republicans. Brooks said Wilson was good at working with all the members.

Umphrey said he thinks Wilson still would have been effective, even in today’s harsh political environment.
Mixson said Wilson knew how to assemble a great team of people to work for his district.

“No one ever felt like he was bigger than them. You name it, he did it. He took care of people. He knew how to connect with people. He had a gift. There will never be another Charlie.”

Charlie Wilson’s War

Behind the scenes, behind the headlines about booze, babes, sniffs of drug use, and bounced checks, there beat the heart of an unabashed patriot who couldn’t stand to watch the communist behemoth of the Soviet Union absorb defenseless countries.
From the House Appropriations Committee, Wilson found money to buy hand-held missiles for medieval Afghan soldiers on horseback to fire at lethal Russian choppers.

His efforts during most of the 1980s resulted in a book by “60 Minutes” producer George Crile called “Charlie Wilson’s War,” published in 2003. The movie version, with rights acquired by actor Tom Hanks — who portrayed Wilson — was released in 2007.
In 2003, Wilson and Crile attended a book signing in Diboll at its History Center.

Crile wrote of Wilson’s extraordinary odyssey to manipulate the levers of congressional power from his perch in the House Appropriations Committee, and to line up unlikely allies in Israel and Egypt with the aid of a black-sheep agent from the wrong side of the Central Intelligence Agency’s tracks.

The deadly serious work took place right alongside Wilson’s well-deserved reputation for outrageous behavior that would have sunk a lesser man.

At the 2003 book signing, the six-and-half-foot tall Wilson, then 70, still grinned broadly, though his amazingly thick shock of hair was grayer. He still wore his signature boldly striped shirts with French cuffs and American-flag cufflinks.

In The History Center, a picture of the 1961 version of Wilson hangs in a gallery — same crooked grin under a then-stylish crew cut.
After Hanks learned of Wilson’s heart transplant surgery, he sent a get-well present: the binoculars the actor used in his role in “Saving Private Ryan,” Wilson’s favorite movie.

“I’ve led a pretty rich and full life, and I look forward to continuing it,” said Wilson in October 2007 after his release from the hospital in Houston.